Submission Criteria and Guidelines

The International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance Book Prize is awarded annually for an exceptional single-authored or co-authored monograph. Edited volumes are not eligible. The book should represent outstanding scholarship and make a significant contribution to the ICTMD’s mission: “To promote research, documentation, safeguarding, and sustainability of music, dance, and related performing arts, taking into account the diversity of cultural practices, past and present, and scholarly traditions worldwide.”

Criteria: Books must be published in English within the previous two calendar years. Authors (or at least one of the co-authors) must be current ICTMD members. Only one book by the same author (or co-author) will be considered in a given year, and no book will be considered more than once. Members of the Prize Committee or Subcommittee may not submit a book for which they are the author or a co-author. 

Submission Process: Submissions / nominations must be received by 1 March, accompanied by a brief statement (not more than 200 words) explaining why the book is worthy of being awarded the Prize. The statement must be submitted in PDF format to prizes-books@ictmd.org. There are two options for submitting the book: (1) submit it in PDF format to the same address, or (2) mail hard copies to all members of the Book Prize Subcommittee (please contact the Prize Committee Chair at brian.diettrich@vuw.ac.nz for mailing addresses).

Administration: The Prize Committee, in consultation with the Executive Board, will appoint a Subcommittee to evaluate the submissions. The winner of the previous year's Prize will be invited to join the next year's Subcommittee.

Award: The winner will receive a certificate and a two-year ICTMD membership or an equivalent travel subsidy to attend an ICTMD event. Prize winners will be announced at the World Conference or in the summer of a non-conference year.

Past recipients of the ICTMD Book Prize

2024

Winner

• Christina J. Woolner. 2023. Love Songs in Motion: Voicing Intimacy in Somaliland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Honourable mention

• Stéphane Aubinet. 2022. Why Sámi Sing: Knowing Through Melodies in Northern Norway. New York: Routledge.

Read the announcement of the 2024 ICTMD prize winners here.

2023

Winner

• Jessica Bissett Perea. 2021. Sound Relations: Native Ways of Doing Music History in Alaska. Oxford University Press.

Honourable mention

• Kay Kaufman Shelemay. 2022. Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora. University of Chicago Press.

Read the announcement of the 2023 ICTMD prize winners here.

2022

Winner

• Nili Belkind. 2020. Music in Conflict: Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Aesthetic Production. London: Routledge.

Honourable mentions

• Filippo Bonini Baraldi. 2021. Roma Music and Emotion. New York: Oxford University Press.

Read the announcement of the 2022 ICTMD prize winners here.

2021

Winner

• Lorenzo Ferrarini and Nicola Scaldaferri. 2020. Sonic Ethnography: Identity, Heritage and Creative Research Practice in Basilicata, Southern Italy. Manchester University Press.

Honourable mentions

• Rebecca Dirksen. 2020. After the Dance, the Drums are Heavy: Carnival, Politics, and Musical Engagement in Haiti. Oxford University Press.
• Sarah Weiss. 2019. Ritual Soundings: Women Performers and World Religions. University of Illinois Press.

Read the announcement of the 2021 ICTMD prize winners here.

2020

Winner

• Lonán Ó Briain. 2018. Musical Minorities: The Sounds of Hmong Ethnicity in Northern Vietnam. Oxford University Press.

Honourable mention

• Frank Gunderson. 2018. The Legacy of Tanzanian Musicians Muhidin Guromo and Hassan Bitchuka: Rhumba Kiserebuka! Lexington Books.

Read the announcement of the 2020 ICTMD prize winners here.